Missile strike kills hundreds on vessel

Posted: November 10, 2010 - 8:30pm

On Nov. 26, 1943, nearly 2,000 American soldiers faced the most traumatic experience of their young lives.

These kids, most only a year or so out of high school, woke up that morning aboard a vessel some described as unfit for human habitation. Having survived a Thanksgiving Day dinner the day before, things just had to get better. The sad part of it was, this would be the last Thanksgiving for more than half of them.

Their self-confidence was shattered when a German guided missile slammed into the port side of their ship, the HMT Rohna, off the coast of North Africa. Deserted by the Indian crew and with no lifesaving equipment because of the deplorable condition of lifeboats and rafts, the fate of the men was left to the cold waters of the Mediterranean Sea. Rescue operations were hampered by darkness and heavy seas.

When the night was over, fewer than half of those 2,000 men made it to safety. There would be no tomorrow for 1,015 young American soldiers.

The survivors regrouped and served the rest of their tour of duty in the China-Burma-India Theater. They returned home to pick up the pieces of their lives and tried to suppress the memory of the event that changed their lives forever.

It was the first successful "hit" of a merchant vessel at sea carrying U.S. troops by a German remote-controlled, rocket-boosted bomb. Combined with the loss of ship's crew and officers and three Red Cross workers, more lives were lost than on the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor.

The hit was so devastating the U.S. government placed a veil of secrecy upon it. The secrecy continued for decades until the documents were recently released.

The government still does not acknowledge this tragedy, thus most families of the casualties still do not know the fate of their loved ones.

My Dad, E.H. "Pete" Willeford, told our family the following story about the day the guided missile hit the Rohna.

Dad had just came up to the top deck after having an evening meal when the air strike started. Like everyone else, he went to his assigned station to wait for orders.

Dad was with the 853rd Engineer Aviation Battalion. When the air strike was over, many soldiers saw one lone German plane too high up for the anti-aircraft guns to hit. A smaller "aircraft" was dropped from the underside of the plane.

Many watched as the missile traveled parallel with their ship, when all at once it turned and hit the ship. From there, it was every man for himself.

Dad jumped into the cold waters of the Mediterranean Sea amid 12- to 15-foot waves. It was late afternoon and darkness covered the attack site. Dad could see and hear men screaming, as many were covered in flaming oil from the ship. Dad said he was in the water for about three to four hours when the USS Pioneer picked him up.

After Dad passed away in 2008, I came across an old VHS tape that had a History Channel documentary of the Rohna.

Those young men went through too horrible an ordeal for the world not to know what happen. God bless our military men and women all over the world.